Alice's New Moon

1. The Preparation

Today was the day we were all preparing for, Bella Swan’s eighteenth birthday. I had planned a humongous party for her and I was so excited that I could barely contain myself.

In the kitchen, Esme was baking a cake out of scratch. Supposedly, she had been quite the baker in her human life. Rosalie was half-heartedly making icing beside her.

Emmett and Rosalie had flown in last night, just for the occasion, from Africa.

Jasper and Carlisle were out hunting to quench Jasper’s thirst. Emmett was watching scurry around and Edward was responding to questions in people’s minds. I ran around, making sure everything was just perfect. For all I knew, this could be the only birthday of Bella’s that we would celebrate. Everything had to be perfect.

From across the room, Edward glared at me. He didn’t like when I thought about Bella becoming a vampire. In response, I stuck my tongue out at him. I hurried over to where Esme was. I check on the batter and smiled. For human food, it looked pretty good.

“You and Edward have to leave for school soon”, remarked Esme while she, too, checked on the consistency of the icing. “Add a little more red food dye”, she ordered softly to a glowering Rosalie. Without any response, the directions were carried out.

“Come on, Alice”, grinned Edward in a happy temperament. “We’d better get ready. We don’t want to be late for high school. You don’t know what valuable learning experiences we could miss.”

I grinned back at my brother and ran up the winding staircase to the room I share with Jasper. I flitted into an outfit I had already picked out and ran to the mirror. My hair was perfect so I ran back down the stairs.

“Are you done hunting already?” I demanded of Jasper who was just coming in the front door. He grinned back at me and took my hand.

“Oh I got enough, all right.” He chuckled, squeezing my hand.

Carlisle stepped through the door and glanced over at me. “I have the roses and the white sheet. Edward is waiting for you in the Volvo. He is most likely becoming very impatient.”

I smiled as I reached for a yellow rain jacked that I was expected to where as part of the charade.

“Oh, and Emmett,” Carlisle asked. “Can you please carry in the rest of the flowers.” He raised his eyebrows. “Alice wanted a ton of them.”

Before Edward could start beeping and tooting the car horn, I flitted out of the front door. In front of the long, winding driveway was the Volvo, idling and I ran over to it hastily.

“There you are! I want to get to school before Bella does today.” His foot steadily increased to speed until we were going at about one hundred miles per hour.

We were to school in minutes. I reopened the car door and made sure that Bella’s gift was in there. It was.

“Are you done picking through my thoughts yet?” I asked Edward who was laughing into his palm.

The next ten minutes lapsed uneventfully into my immortal memory. Finally, I could hear the thunderous roar of the truck and I smiled to myself. When was Bella going to let my brother buy her a new car?

“I was thinking an Audi. She would really appreciate it, if only she would let me buy it.”

“Bella’s here,” I announced, though, with her truck she didn’t need any announcing at all.

She stumbled toward us and I decided to meet her halfway. I skipped over to her smiling joyfully.

“Happy birthday Bella!” I joyfully proclaimed.

“Shh,” she hissed at me angrily.

I decided to ignore her. “Do you want your present now or later?” I asked eagerly as we walked to where Edward stood.

“No presents,” she protested to me ina grumble. I guess she wasn’t really up for anything right now.

“Okay…later then. Did you like the scrapbook your mom sent you? And the camera from Charlie?” I had known what she was getting for her birthday for weeks.

“Yeah, they’re great.” I decided that I had to defend this matter.

“I think it’s a nice idea. You’re only a senior once. Might as well document the experience.”